How does one balance a life as the foremost virtuoso of his instrument, being present as a husband and father, maintaining multiple musical projects with some of the greatest players of his generation, and hosting a nationally syndicated weekly variety show?

For mandolinist, vocalist, composer and host of NPR’s “Live From Here” radio program Chris Thile, who performs with his contemporary string band Punch Brothers at the Fox Theatre in Oakland on Wednesday, Aug. 22, and Weill Hall in Rohnert Park on Thursday, Aug. 23, it’s all in a day’s work.

“A certain level of creative organization is necessary at this point,” he says, with a chuckle. “I’ve always had a lot of energy, which serves me well. I like being tired at the end of the day.”

In describing his own daily routine, Thile comes across as an ordinary working father, packing in practice and writing time in between runs to and from his 3-year-old son’s preschool in Brooklyn.

“Everyone’s doing a lot of work these days, and I don’t feel particularly unique in that regard,” he says. “There’s a certain urgency to being alive right now. I think that maybe the amount of activity that I’m engaging in might have something to do with the general urgency of life in the 21st century.”

Born in 1981, Thile can claim membership to both Generation X and as a Millennial and embodies traits of both generations — the slow determination and mild disenfranchisement of Generation X, with the eclectic interests and boundless energy of a Millennial.

All members of Punch Brothers — including fiddle player Gabe Witcher, guitarist Chris Eldridge, banjo player Noam Pikelny and bassist Paul Kowert — share Thile’s generational affiliation, ranging in age from 31 to 40, and that camaraderie played a large part in the formation and ongoing ethos of the band.

“One of the things we were thinking about in the formation of Punch Brothers was getting some guys together roughly around the same age who were experiencing the same things,” says Thile.

The band’s new release, “All Ashore,” is a nine-song suite addressing relationships, both intimate and societal, at the onset of early-middle age and amid the most unsettled of times. Or as Thile puts it, “The work of being in love and how our current state of madness as a society is affecting the work of being in love and staying in love.”

Punch Brothers set the bar and blazes new trails for what is possible in the traditional string band format with compositions of breathtaking complexity, avoiding boom-chuck convention almost entirely, that also connect aesthetically and emotionally. There is usually a singular mastermind behind music with this level of nuance and depth, but Thile insists that the songwriting is collaborative and democratic.

“I have these comrades in my fellow Punch Brothers where we can explore musical and lyrical ideas coming out of this place of trust and long-standing friendship,” says Thile.

“At this point we’ve been together for 12 years, and those were pretty formative years, so we’re coming to this record through a lot of shared experience. We’ve developed a compositional shorthand such that we can become sort of a five-headed composer, which is really something to experience,” he continues. “It’s an argument for sticking with a project long term — I’ve never been so comfortable as a creative person as I am in the Punch Brothers’ writing room.”

That’s a high compliment coming from a man who has stood among the bluegrass/newgrass elite for almost three decades, despite being only 37.

Thile, who lived in San Francisco briefly in the early 2000s, looks forward to any return to the Bay Area. “I actually lived on Buchanan between Pine and Bush for a year and a half during an ill-fated first marriage and absolutely fell in love with the city, never to be torn asunder,” he said.

He cites the Bay Area as rich in mandolin tradition, home to David Grisman, Mike Marshall and formerly John Reischman, who Thile calls “a tone god of mine.” Thile particularly calls out Oakland native Marshall, a life mentor who taught him as much about good coffee as music (Thile’s love for coffee is only challenged by his more recent affinity for tiki cocktails).

“So it’s a homecoming of sorts, even though it was only home for a short time,” says Thile. “I don’t think you’ll ever get the Bay Area out of your system if you’ve lived there even for a couple of months.”

But cocktails at the Tonga Room will have to wait until after his Oakland and Sonoma County shows. It’s work first for this crew.